Victoria, BC

The day started with a visit to one of Victoria's biggest, and smallest, attractions: Miniature World. This is a series of model tableaux, many of which are very good indeed, including a model of the trans-Canadian railroad.

Victoria is a charming city, and the harbour is incredibly busy. There are dozens of whale watching boats; ferrys from Seattle, Port Angeles, and the San Juan islands; and as many as two-hundred sea-plane movements a day. We took a tour of the inner harbour on on of the comical little ferry boats which buzz about all day long.

In the afternoon, we swapped to a much more powerful boat, a scarab with three huge outboards, for a whale watching trip. We first went to Race Rock (where there's a lighthouse which was begging to be photographed), to see sealions and seals.

Then is was off to the San Juan islands, where killer whales had been spotted. There are three pods of killer whales resident in the area, and this was J-pod, a group of about 25 whales. They were fairly widely spread out as they were feeding, and there are strict rules on where the boats can go. They have to stay a quarter of a mile offshore, and can't go closer than a hundred metres to the whales while the engines are on. So the boats get in front of the whales, turn the engines off, and wait for them to pass. The boat was also equipped with a hydophonic system, so we could hear the whales clicking and whistling. We saw several whales, including a mother with a three week old calf and a number of groups of two and three.